Is al hungerford. I am the executive director of the adam society at the Manhattan Institute. And on behalf of the manhattan, it is my pleasure to welcome to tonights discussion with Abigail Shrier and her new book, bad therapy. The kids arent growing up. Abigail shrier has long been raising the alarm and troubling new trends. The development of our children. Her book, irreversible damage of the siren call of transgender among teenage girls. This new book, an investigation the Mental Health industry promises to be equally important to parents and to all who care about the development of the next generation. As many here know, Manhattan Institute is an organization dedicated to keeping america and its great cities, prosperous, safe and free. To our magazine city journal. And with gatherings like this, the Manhattan Institute amplifies and fearless voices like abigails that stand up to conventional wisdom, to todays most pressing challenges. We are grateful to, our supporters and friends here with us this evening for your engagement in our community and for your support that makes gatherings like this possible. I like to thank in particular Manhattan Institute trustees susie leibovitz, edelman and russell pinoy for being here with us this evening. Thank you. It is also my pleasure to welcome those of you who are new to our community, if this is your first Manhattan Institute event, i encourage you to reach out to me or to others, our team, to find out how you can get more involved. In a minute, im going hand things over to emily yoffe, whos moderator for the evening, who will be leading abigail in conversation before we open up the floor to questions from the audience. But first, let me introduce our speakers Abigail Shrier receive the Barbara Olson award for excellence in independence in journalism in 2021. Her bestselling irreversible damage the transgender seducing our daughters, was named a best book by the economist and the times of london. It has been translated into ten languages. She holds an a. B. From columbia college, where she your a jake hallett fellowship a b file from university of oxford and a j. D. From yale law school. She has written for the Manhattan Institute city journal a number of years. Emily is a Senior Editor at the free press. Prior to that, she was a contributing writer at the atlantic, where she focused on campus sexual assault, metoo and the need for due process. Before that, she was a longtime contributor slate, where she wrote on many topics as well as being their advice columnists. Dear prudence. For ten years. Please join me in giving Abigail Shrier and emily coffee. A warm welcome welcome. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here to introduce you to abigail. I want to cover three basic things in this conversation. Okay . Okay. Now you got. Describe the problem that you write about in bad therapy. What is it . How got here. And maybe how we can get out. So what was the spark that . Started this book and tell us a couple the most surprising things discovered. Sure its. Its great to be here. You know, im crazy about city journal and the Manhattan Institute. Always a joy to write for them. And and, of course, to be here with one of my absolute heroes emily coffee. Its just a great. So thank you so book. They always sort of pair these things in the press, you know, and but the book in some ways is not very surprising. Right . The book that anything that is power ful, any intervention that is powerful all that is efficacious can help. It can also necessarily harm. Right. Thats true of any intervention. Now, how did i get to. So so thats the claim. The therapeutic interventions kids are getting. How did i get here . So with the last book, i took a look, one phenomenon going on in the Mental Health of teen obviously why they were all into girls in distress were deciding they were transgender. Im raising three kids in this generation so im concerned about they turn out and im not just as an academic, im concerned because i want to get it right. If there is such a thing you know, i dont want them to to end up like sort of the the kids, you know, some of the kids see around who are in terrible distress, who cant to function, who need Mental Health days off of work. Now, that doesnt mean that there arent people who are in profound distress and. Theres nothing, you know, look, they all the help we can give them. And frankly, theyre not getting enough. Right. So are the bipolar patients. Are this schizophrenics. My book is not about that. What im looking at is why the kid in america, part of gen z, might say when driving past their middle, oh, i cant drive past that. I have that i have ptsd. So im not ptsd. Its kind of the opposite. I think ptsd is a really severe, serious thing. And i dont think you were picked on in middle school. You have it. You know, generally speaking. But how do you know what i wanted know was i started out a question, which is how i should have answered. I started out with a question, why were the kids who had the most Mental Health intervention in the most therapy, the most psychiatric meds, the most social Emotional Learning, the coping skills, the most mindfulness. They should have been the picture Mental Health. So why were they in so much distress . See, i started by taking seriously the idea that their pain was real. I would call them snowflakes. Thats not sort of my orientation toward the rising generation. I dont think that they are. I think their distress is absolute, real. And i was very concerned to know how do they end up in such distress . Because it wasnt obvious from the outside. And the second thing i wondered was why did they seem to have no interest in growing up . Why didnt they rush to get their drivers licenses . Why . I just read or 56 of 18 to 25 year olds living with their parents and the lowest unemployment weve seen. These are very, very low unemployment. Theyre living at home. It seems because they want to or theyre at least content to with their parents. These were things we have packed ourselves to an apartment to avoid. When i was young and i think it matters. Thats the thing. I think it matters because sort of the underlying of the book is that growing is actually the cure adolescent angst. And if theyre trapped in this feeling of incapacity, theyre trapped in this feeling of distress and they they dont feel up to growing up. They may never get out of that. You open the book with a bang or of an anecdote about your 12 year old son coming from camp. I think with a stomach ache that wont clear up. So. Well, lets go see the pediatrician and what happens next kind of helps explain the thesis of your book and what you just described. So here they are. What happens tell. Sure. So its funny. I already written the book pretty much. I showed up at urgent care last summer with my son who was in terrible stomach ache and it was a sunday saw. A pediatrician was closed. So went to our local urgent care just to make sure it wasnt appendicitis because it lasted while and so they said nope, they a little quick test on him and they said no, its not. Its fine. Itll probably either be, you know, i thought maybe had a weird bug. Anyway they sent us home, but they said, before you go, its just dehydration. Have him drink. But before you go, wed like to do our Mental Health screener. So were going to ask you to leave. And i had already written this book and yet i stood up to leave. And then i thought, why am i leaving . Hold on. And i sat back down and i said, could i please see your Mental Health screener. And the man looked shocked because most dont ask to see it. By the way, i almost didnt write. It was questions and they are a series of escalating questions that out to be issued by the National Institute of Mental Health. This is the federal Government Agency is this was the standard form for kids eight and up and theres series of escalating questions about whether and why a kid want to kill himself and and by the way, asking parents to leave the room is part the protocol on the website. Right on the website. National institute of Mental Health, division of or its affiliated with nih and so it was just one more instance when i realized a few things where i was reminded a few things. Well, one of the questions was, wasnt it . Have you felt like killing yourself today . Right. Right. Do you think your parents might be better off without you now, remember, my son wasnt there for a suicidal ideation. He was there for a stomach ache. And also, these questions were so bizarre that, anyone would put them in front of a kid right. They flew in the face of anything we would think was good for kids. Now it turns out a lot of psychologists, when i would interview them, say no about we know that asking about suicide encourage propensity for suicide. Okay but these kids are getting deluged. I learned with suicide in a way that we havent seen. Well, its like a push pull for suicide. Im surprised that psychologists told you that because most of the literature aware of about suicide is being very careful and talking about it, especially to young people, there is a kind of virality in it and normalizing it, a response. Lifes distress is very dangerous. Exactly right. So suicide can contagious. And there are three things that they have found that that researchers have found increase. Theres really great studies on this increase. The contagion or the chance of spreading it and that is valorize seeing the subject presenting it as a means of coping and. The third is, oh, in repetitive mention. Okay, so even researchers when i asked about this very often would tell me, well, you know, its simple. Well, i wont do that maybe. Thats right. I mean, i believe that. And measured it two days later. I think the was very shortly after that wont make a kid want to kill himself. Okay but then what i had from from the investigation going into the school so you the getting the documents on the quantity of these surveys the the and the surveys kids were getting getting across the country was that kids being asked about this in a repetitive manner. They were presenting this as normalized. They were explaining it very to the kids in term in the surveys as a means of coping. They were doing lot of the things that actually the research showed was the opposite of would be the sensible or responsible thing to and these are by the way, these author these surveys are very often written by the cdc that are, you know, statewide that sorry, across the theyre in all kinds of state. You know, every state that i found so and thats sort of a theme of the book that the psychological the psychological literature is actually pretty clear on things. The true genic harms of therapeutic intervention there are a series of known tested harms that therapy can. We have all sorts research on this and what the practitioner is are doing is flying in the face it now not not every practitioner but a lot of them especially with kids and teens what do you think is going on here . I mean, jonathan haidt, whos cite in the book as a sociologist he has a book coming out about Mental Health distress. His thesis is the smartphone in 2012 getting put in the hands of children is the key moment in the decline of kids Mental Health. But do you do you have a timeline i know you think the smartphone is part of it but what youre describing im sure is shocking to a lot of people. My daughters 28. The idea that as an eight year old should be asked these of questions is appalling to me. What how did this sweep across the country and enter schools and become this bad therapy become standard fare. I so i completely agree with know the idea that social media is very very bad for kids and absolutely was a major factor in the decline of adolescent Mental Health. Theres no question in my mind thats true. And last book was about a particular contagion. The trans idea of a trans identity and gender dysphoria being spread through largely through social media. But things in a society arent usually, you know, you know, vector and and and and single factor and i think this is another instance where there were many things at play. And ill give you an example. If i went back to my book, its true that social media played a huge role in convincing of teen girls that they were transgender. And its also true that almost every case of an adolescent i talk to or parents i talk to, they had a therapist who played a big in their revelation. And here was the interesting thing. It was almost never a gender therapist because anxious teens werent taken straight to the gender therapist. They were taken the moment they had a anxiety or a sadness in middle school. They were taken to us. I go to an amish psychotherapist who sat with them weekly and explored what might be causing their distress, and they would explore many things like mom, like all sorts of things like know trauma. And one of the things that therapist would explore them was gender. And that sort of, you know, sort of stayed the back of my head the whole time was that they were playing a role. And there was the strange about it and not a single instance, a parent say to me, and by the end i probably talked to a thousand parents and not a single instance to my to my parent. Did a parent say to me, i took her to therapist and the therapist said, youre not transgender. Middle schools hard. So i just think theres multi you. Its a multi variant thing. I think there are a lot of things going on. So you describe lot of phenomena in this book which ive read. Its fabulous. Everyone read it. You list ten ways to bad therapy. So i dont want to go through all ten, but lets talk about each of you of them and. These are all things that our kids are being taught by everyone from to School Counselors to therapist this one is paid close attention to your feelings. Let guide you as. You say, thats a wonderful way. Create bullies and narcissists so say why being in touch with your feelings is bad advice. Well, it turns out that if you really are honest it and straightforward the answer most of your day isnt exactly happy right. Youre often feeling some minor distress of some kind or another that we all suppress all day long. Theres irritation, theres worry, right . Theres an itch. Theres a little of allergy. Theres all kinds of things that are on our minds in a given day. And if we are constantly asked about them, were very, very likely to produce a raft of primarily negative responses, especially if youre a kid, because youre going to be really as if youre a kid. See adults, we know were also always supposed to say, great, when were asked how were doing. Great. But especially in america. But if you think about it, just being asked, how are you feeling . And was brought to my mind by a wonderful psychiatrist in germany hes a professor psychiatry Michael Linden who said me he said, how are you feeling . Right now . And i said, great. And he said, no, not i can see. Youre concentrating on this interview. Youre and he was right. I was actually exhausted i had had to wake up at 5 a. M. To do the interview because i was in l. A. And he was germany. I hated how i looked on the webcam, right . I hadnt put on makeup. I look terrible. He is relaxed and happy. We did it on his schedule in germany and if being to think about how i was feeling was to produce negative responses. So thats our doing that with kids tending to their feelings, worrying about their feelings, telling them to selfmonitor and Pay Attention to their feelings. It sounds compassionate. It really does but i think it often and if you think about it produces the negative a negative reaction. Right. Because actually if you thought about it of life getting through a day involves a certain amount of repression right being good friend, being a good spouse, getting work done. It means not going to attend to all all my worries, all my fears, all my misgivings. Im just going to keep going. Thats actually how we live and thats how we want kids to live to some degree, to which doesnt mean, of course, never share your feelings. Of course not. But it also means finish your math. Test them. Well talk about it. Another one is you describe work of peter gray at boston, whos wonderful the great scholar of and he writes despairingly about the transformation of play in america. And you write about how that you think is a key to our problems. You say that we all all the kids all kids need the three ds danger discovery and dirt. Can you talk a little bit whats happened to play the three ds . Sure. Well, hes done wonderful re hes wonderful i remember reading his textbook in college which is is fantastic he does this he has this introductory psychology textbook which is just a great read, believe it or not. So i was excited to get in touch with him and hes is this work showing that play has completely changed. Why because we monitor it, we surveilling, we stop all the risk and all the danger. And it turns out what happens when you never let a kid test their limits, they dont what their limits are. And they become afraid of all things arent actually scary because never learned to navigate them. But theres Something Else too, which is that we all play of the evolutionary beneficial sort, which involves some risk and danger. The kind mom doesnt to hear about that stuff actually. And hes done studies on this produces short term joy and long term contentment. That kind discovery and feeling of capacity. I can climb to the top of those monkey bars. I did it. Its very hard to do today with your mom like or errand or the recess nervously stand, telling you to come down, but actually it gives it gets a kid to test what he can do and feel good about that. And were sort of robbing kids that the last one i want to talk about is what you call drug the rise of psychotropic medication for children. You say changing the brain chemistry of your child is one of the most profound you can do. And once kids get on these medicines, they could possibly be for decades for life. And theyre put on after a cursory analysis as the parents sign off, say more that and and why arent m